


Unplanned Meetings

by khilari, Persephone_Kore



Series: Agatha's Bad Plan AU [8]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1549466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone_Kore/pseuds/Persephone_Kore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighth in the Agatha's Bad Plan AU. Klaus was not expecting the pie. Or the circus full of Sparks. Or the Muse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unplanned Meetings

* * *

'My Lady,' the Castle announced, 'your circus has arrived.' 

'Oh!' Agatha fairly lit up. 'The one Zeetha and I were traveling with,' she explained to Klaus, hastily, and then turned and raced for the door. 

Klaus had more sense than to stay in the heart of one of Castle Heterodyne's greatest secrets -- especially one as weirdly disorienting as the wellspring of the Dyne -- without its Heterodyne, and a certain amount of curiosity about this circus. He kept pace after Agatha easily enough, although he opted against sliding down banisters, but he fell behind purposefully at the end of the chase, as she headed for an open square, to give her a moment to greet her friends without worrying about introductions. 

He didn't wait _long_ , and when he did stroll up within sight, Agatha was standing with a young man's arm around her -- Klaus felt a twinge on Gil's behalf, but he supposed Gil could probably sort that out himself -- and talking animatedly with an older couple. The older man's starry outfit and bearing suggested he was the master of the circus, and the older woman was saying, '--relieved you're all right. We hardly knew what to believe; we've been hearing the most extraordinary tales, and apparently the most remarkable ones were true--'

Zeetha, Klaus noted, was off to the side kissing a very large man covered in golden fur. That explained the name, anyway. 

'At least I suppose it must be true that you worked something out with the Baron,' added the presumed Master Payne. The boy next to Agatha looked around in sudden concern.

Klaus decided that was enough time and stepped forward. 'Indeed she did.'

Zeetha and Yeti broke off kissing, and Zeetha waved to him; Agatha spun around, still beaming. 'Ah, yes, he's visiting today. Herr Baron, this is Master Payne, Countess Marie, Lars....' 

Zeetha came over to help with the introductions and finished them off with ' _And_ it turns out he's my father.'

Yeti, in dismay, blurted, 'You said your father's name was _Chump!_ '

‘There may have still been something of a language barrier when I introduced myself,’ Klaus said smoothly. ‘Regardless, I’m glad to meet my daughter’s friends and travelling companions at last.’ 

At this juncture a small white-haired man emerged from one of the nearby wagons, bearing a cream pie in either hand. ‘Hey, Agatha! You have to try my--’ He caught sight of Klaus, froze… and then smashed one of the pies into his own face. 

Klaus looked at Agatha, who now appeared faintly embarrassed. ‘I've provoked a number of interesting reactions in my time,’ he deadpanned, ‘but this is actually new.’

‘Ah,’ said Agatha, ‘well, this is Taki… he’s the chef...’ After seeming at a loss for words for a moment, she added, ‘He’s really very good.’

‘Herr Baron,’ said Taki, sounding considerably more composed. He bowed, pie filling glopping off his face, and profferred the second in both hands. ‘...Pie?’

Klaus looked at him and accepted the pie carefully, somewhat concerned as to where it might end up otherwise. ‘Why, thank you. I can only assume you play me.’

‘I do my best,’ Taki said amiably. 

‘Ahem!’ said Master Payne. ‘Well, we should--’

‘Share the pie, surely,’ Klaus cut in on a whim. It couldn’t make things _more_ awkward than everyone already seemed to feel. Probably. 

Surprisingly, it did. Master Payne looked flustered. ‘But,’ he said, ‘it’s not really -- that is, it’s only a trick pie.’

Klaus looked closely at the circus master. Something about the man’s manner struck him as a peculiar combination of real agitation covered by well manufactured agitation, and that was suspect. ‘Surely not,’ he said. ‘Why would he be so enthusiastic about Agatha trying a trick pie? Besides, it smells delicious.’ It did, actually. It smelt delicately of nutmeg and lemon, and neither the weight nor the chill, let alone the clearly visible cream and custard of the first one, suggested it was merely the soap fluff used in the average throwing pie. 

At his insistence, Taki brought a knife and a precarious tower of plates. In fact, despite failing to wash his face, Taki now seemed to be the only person besides Klaus who _wasn’t_ at least vaguely nervous or uncomfortable. Klaus was both amused and growing steadily more mystified by this, especially since Agatha and Zeetha shared the unease. At least he was fairly sure they’d speak up if they thought the pie might be poisoned or otherwise noxious. 

He kept his attention firmly on the pie, foiling at least two efforts to switch it out surreptitiously and pretending assiduously that this had been an accident and he had no idea what they were trying to do. Finally, he managed to carve it into an array of thin slices -- and nobody could possibly be deliberately wasting a custard that could hold up to this treatment and still ooze when crushed on a _throwing pie_ \-- share it out, and take a bite. 

It took him a moment to pinpoint the effect. It was a good pie. What he realised after analytically savoring the first bite and then swallowing was that it was _Spark_ cooking. He had another bite as everyone else began to relax, wondering with mild interest whether this was because the pie was taking effect or because they thought he’d missed it. Then he put down his slice and leaned toward Taki. ‘This is actually a little annoying,’ he said. ‘Ordinarily I’d be much more excited.’ 

Taki wiped most of the pie from his face -- finally -- and looked up resignedly. ‘I suppose I’m in for it now, then.’

Klaus considered this reaction and then the effect on himself and decided, with some regret, that he probably shouldn’t finish the slice. ‘What exactly do you imagine I’m going to do to you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Taki said stolidly. ‘Whatever you usually do to minor Sparks.’ It appeared to occur to him that he had another potential quarter to appeal to, and he looked up at Agatha. ‘I don’t suppose you can get him not to?’ 

‘I don’t think he’s planning to hurt you!’ said Agatha, with enough emphasis that Klaus glanced at her plate to see if the pie was intact. It looked nibbled, which was interesting. She looked up at Klaus. ‘You can’t keep him, though.’

‘I don’t habitually keep minor Sparks,’ said Klaus, watching to see if anybody’s pride looked stung. Were Taki and Agatha likely to be the only ones? In a circus that had evidently coped with Jägers and a horde of Agatha’s tiny assistant clanks? ‘Particularly ones who have probably committed no more than petty crimes. However--’ He turned to Taki again. ‘Considering the Sparks I _do_ keep, I really must have that recipe.’

Taki managed to look unsettled. ‘Er, really?’

Klaus tried a slightly different angle. ‘Surely you were planning to publish?’ Unlikely, perhaps, but the _idea_ might help…. 

Taki lit up slowly and then punched the air. ‘Yes! Take _that_ , Brillat-Savarin!’

Klaus blinked. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He glanced at Agatha. ‘I think.’

Taki drew his mouth to one side, thinking. ‘But what about the side effect?’

That was a little concerning. Klaus hadn’t noticed any. ‘ _What_ side effect?’

‘Being too calm to consider the consequences of danger,’ Taki explained earnestly. ‘I’d never have tried to hand you the pie if I’d still been properly frightened.’

Klaus rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh, yes, I see. But generally speaking, most of the Sparks I would like to calm down from a frenzy have long since abandoned any such considerations in the first place.’

‘Ah. Well. That’s all right then. That’s the first time it’s worked,’ Taki confided, evidently calm again. Master Payne looked slightly worried. ‘I’ve been refining the recipe for years. I call it Calming Pie.’ 

‘Taki,’ Payne muttered, ‘I told you it needed a better name. You can’t just call it a Calming Pie to the Baron.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with accurate nomenclature,’ Klaus objected. 

‘He has this overhead bathing equipment on his Castle,’ Agatha explained to Payne, ‘labelled Hot Rain Engines.’

Payne looked as if he despaired of them all.

* * *

Klaus tended to think of himself as a comparatively calm Spark, although there were people who would dispute this notion. The experience of having calm _imposed_ on him suggested that they might have a point. It felt very peculiar, if possibly salutary after the effects of listening to the Dyne, and it somewhat spoiled his interest in looking for further discoveries, although he did manage to get Taki talking about the recipe until it wore off. Taki started to look distressed again, and Klaus took stock of himself. 

'Internal application is clearly more efficient in terms of dosage,' he said thoughtfully, then clapped the chef on the shoulder. 'You really _should_ publish that, even if you do it anonymously. I'll cover the fees and pass along the results once I get a chance to try it on a Spark in full fugue. Sun should be fascinated, too. It's an entirely different effect from most of his portfolio--' Klaus stopped himself short of adding that if he gave it to Sun there was a real chance that Spark would be himself. 'Agatha, didn't you say you'd done some work on these circus wagons?'

'Ah...' Agatha cleared her throat and looked at Master Payne.

'They do seem to have been running unusually smoothly,' said Payne. 

'I did a little more than that,' Agatha admitted. 'After the incident with the crab clank... and the one with the horse....'

'Horse?' Klaus asked. 

'Carnivorous horse,' said Lars. 'Zeetha there cut its head off, only it turned out to have a secondary mouth full of tentacles. Agatha shot it.' 

Klaus nodded gravely. 'Ah. Yes. I've encountered those.' He made a mental note to tell Agatha she might still have a herd of them around here somewhere, when she wasn't surrounded by people who were likely to be alarmed by the news. 

'Anyway,' she said, 'I thought the circus could use some better defences, but of course, they couldn't be too obvious. I'm afraid they're not really _finished_ yet, though.’

'I'd still enjoy seeing the work in progress,' said Klaus, trying to sound less gleeful at the prospect than he felt, and started toward the wagons. 

'Oh, they're going to be at this for a while,' said Zeetha. 'Anybody want to get away from the analysis?'

Payne gave the nod, and a number of the circus folk left with Zeetha. Yeti looked rather torn but followed her in the end. (Smart man.) Others lingered, with mingled concern and curiosity, to find out just what Agatha had done to their wagons. The first one he examined was hers, and the first thing he found on opening up one of the legs to check it was a swarm of Agatha's tiny clanks in the middle of altering a joint. They all glared at him.

He made similar findings in the other leg, the egg compartment, one wing, a rather well-concealed gun, and the gearage. The wagon was very nearly flight-capable at this point, although he was somewhat concerned that the aerial steering seemed to be completely inaccessible except to the tiny clanks and would be awkward even for them. 

'I was working on a different control mechanism,' Agatha said when he pointed this out. 'We'll get to that later.'

Klaus moved on to a second wagon, chosen at random, and found _more_ little clanks that glowered at him. 'Agatha. Is there a reason all your mechanical minions seem to be annoyed with me?' 

'Well,' she said, 'I did tell them to stay out of sight, and you keep finding them.'

"It's not my fault they're not better at it," he said. "Ow!" That last was because he'd just been smacked in the hand with a wrench bigger than the clank wielding it.

'You don't have to hit him!' Agatha said. 'I told him he could look.'

The clanks looked skeptical.

'Thank you,' Klaus said dryly. '--What about that control mechanism?'

'It's not--'

'Finished, yes, you said.' As if that made it any less interesting!

The control mechanism turned out to be a large and rather battered organ. 'Your army is controlled by piano?' he asked.

'Well, _eventually_ ,' said Agatha. She gently depressed one of the keys; despite appearance, the jostling of travel, and the possible presence of small clanks in the works, the note that shivered out into the air was true and clear. Everyone went instantly alert. Agatha looked around. 'Oh, don't worry, I haven't triggered the connection!' She played a scale until she hit a note that didn't sound, and frowned at it. 'It's a beautiful instrument. I hate to leave it like this.' She looked around, eyes falling on Payne and a sandy-haired young man whose name Klaus didn't recall hearing. 'I know it's special to you, but it's not as if you can play it like this. Perhaps if I can't complete the repairs while you're here, you could pick it up next time you come through?' 

Both men looked uncomfortable. Then the younger one stepped forward and took both her hands. 'Lady Heterodyne,' he said. Agatha's eyebrows jumped at this incongruous formality. 'I'm afraid we lied to you. It was apparent that you were a strong Spark, and we, ah, we thought you'd be happier and everyone would be safer if you had a project to keep you busy. None of us ever got a note out of the Silverodeon before.' 

This was clearly both a mark of great friendship and trust, and a calculated risk. Everyone had clearly braced for an explosion. Even Klaus winced. 

Agatha blinked rapidly. 'O-ohhhh. Well. Okay then.' She let go of his hands and clapped hers together. 'Well, in that case you won't mind! It really is coming along _very_ nicely -- I have any number of further improvements in mind, quite aside from the basic repairs of course -- and naturally you'll need it back in the end to orchestrate the defences.'

The circus looked decidedly uneasy at that, but not quite enough so to object. Klaus made a mental note that if Agatha wanted to install unlikely and extremely well hidden defences into vehicles there were projects he should consider sending her way. That or put her in touch with the Corbettite Monks.

Klaus opened up the Silverodeon and ended up spending long enough on it that the little clanks seemed to have become resigned to him by the end. Music might not be his forte, but the mechanics of it he could certainly manage, and the design of both the instrument and the communications implied to the various wagon-clanks had a variety of fascinating aspects (and several stylistic quirks that gripped him with unwished-for nostalgia). 

Agatha started out leaning in to show him what she'd done, then reaching in to fix 'just that one thing', and before Klaus thought to rein in his impulses toward developmental reworking -- as a matter of either tact or timing -- they had a whole section of the casing off and Agatha's friend Rivet asking in bewilderment just how many obscure tools he kept in his coat. It was really brilliant work, although Klaus was not altogether sure about Agatha's contention that it needed an array of dancing puppets and a little ball covered in mirrors. Or at any rate those were both going to have to wait until they got some more parts. 

When they closed it off a few hours later, he set out to inspect the corresponding responsive systems in the other wagons, and was surprised to be forestalled when he approached the prop wagon.

'Ah, I don't believe she's done anything to that one,' Master Payne said, just as his wife Marie said, 'I'm sorry, that's private.'

'Well, not very much,' Agatha said with a frown. 'My little clanks did all of it, actually. But there should be some engine improvements and of course some deployable shielding -- it needs better shock resistance before I can install any actual weaponry....'

Klaus eyed the pair, thoughts humming with the Sparky pleasure of going through someone else's work, and ticked over smoothly into a different form of analysis. They usually played off each other better than this, he suspected. 'The _prop wagon_ is private?' he asked, all polite incredulity. 

Payne harrumphed. 'Well, yes -- you know -- professional secrets --' 

Klaus rolled his eyes and swung back to the wagon. 'I am hardly going to give away your _stage secrets_!' he called over his shoulder. Which was _true_ , but the very fact that they were trying to _thwart_ him meant this was likely to answer his _questions_. He opened the door, one foot already on the step up, and froze. 

The elegant clank seated inside raised her face -- porcelain, mouthless, a fleur-de-lis on the forehead -- and gave him a look. 

Klaus stepped back down and shut the door, feeling very much as if he'd just walked into a lady's room uninvited and been soundly rebuked for it. Probably because he _had_. 

He must have looked stunned, too, because Agatha stepped forward looking uncertain and rather concerned. 'Herr Baron? What on Earth--?'

'There's a Muse in there,' Klaus said, still sounding stunned. Then, because it wasn't the obvious assumption when she'd been with a group of Sparks, 'Intact and from the look of it well treated.' And they _were_ Sparks. Far more than only Taki. The Muse hadn't been the only impossible thing in the wagon -- at a glance, a _glance_ , he'd identified at least a half dozen distinct styles. Nothing _spectacular_ , but not necessarily more trivial than the Calming Pie, and likely more useful or at least less impractical than the bulk of what the higher-level Sparks he employed came up with. _Remarkable_ for the limited resources and education probably available on average to a Spark who'd run away with the circus. And yet -- despite the surrounding Sparks, despite the props wagon obviously being in regular use for storage -- the Muse had looked as if she was accustomed to considering it her own private property.

'Well, I should think so!' Agatha said rather indignantly, and Klaus realised belatedly that she probably _wouldn't_ assume her friends were likely to take apart a Muse. '--Another Muse? Really?'

Payne, who had been cleaning his glasses with undue vigor and a distressed expression, stopped and put them back on. 'Another?'

'We recently discovered Otilia,' said Klaus. 'She's on Castle Wulfenbach.' Which might not be the most convenient thing now, but it had been a relief to everybody, including her, when she had been able to remain with it on the promise Klaus would tell her about danger to or from Agatha. 'Also intact. I'm employing her, not studying her.'

'She's a schoolteacher,' Agatha put in helpfully. 'It's what she wanted to do.' 

Payne looked at Agatha, then at Klaus, with peculiar intensity. 'Are you suggesting, Herr Baron,' he asked carefully, 'that you believe the Muses' reputed self-awareness to be genuine rather than merely reflecting a widespread tendency toward anthropomorphism?'

It might not do his reputation as a scientist much good, but he remembered Otilia, wings stretched in the sunlight, full of joy and relief at being in her rightful body again. He remembered her as Von Pinn, and now, with her fierce if terrifying love for her charges. For Gil. 'Are you suggesting that you've interacted with one and _don't?_ '

Agatha smiled for some reason. Payne removed his glasses again and let out his breath with a whoosh. 'No. And more than that, I believe Moxana is... is unwell.'

'Unwell?" said Klaus, glancing back at the props wagon. It was an odd choice of word, for all he believed their self-awareness was real, physically they were still machines. One could be broken, or breaking, but what would be equivalent to illness?

Payne gave the wagon a slightly guilty look, himself, as Klaus turned back to him. 'Deteriorating. Not physically, but she's been growing steadily more withdrawn over the past few years, even shutting herself down for days at a time, less responsive when she is active. I actually intended to risk taking her to Dr Beetle.' Klaus and Agatha both winced at that. Payne looked wary. 'What...?'

'Dr Beetle is dead,' said Klaus.

'Damn!' Payne burst out. 'What happened?' -- and then he looked abruptly as if he wished he hadn't asked. 

'He'd been behaving more erratically lately,' Agatha said, unhappily but perhaps managing to imply that this was a sort of all-too-common Sparky vagary. Klaus began to expect the circus folk to be reassured by her explanation -- Bill and Barry always _had_ been better at that than he was, and they already trusted Agatha -- and then she said outright, 'He got fixated on the idea that the Baron was in league with the Other.'

'...Oh, dear,' Payne said rather helplessly.

Agatha sighed. 'So, in what I'm pretty sure was a sincere effort to save Europa, he, ah, threw a bomb at the Baron and Gil.'

'You were _there_?' Payne asked. 

'I was his student.' Agatha looked away. 'It was very upsetting.'

Marie darted a look at Klaus and tentatively asked, 'Is that when he took you prisoner?' 

'Oh -- well, a bit later, actually.' Agatha shot him an annoyed look -- Klaus returned it; he hadn't asked her to help explain, and while he didn't care to besmirch Beetle's reputation, he didn't appreciate her reiterating the suspicions of _him_ instead -- and said, 'I built a clank in my sleep to go after some robbers and he thought it was after him and Gil.'

'Yes, well,' said Klaus, aware that this story was only going to make him sound sillier the more detail she gave, but not quite sure what to say on his own behalf. 'I was sorry for Beetle's death. I had no idea of his suspicions when I confronted him and didn't intend for it to come to that.'

'I imagine that _was_ rather a surprise,' Payne said, apparently sincerely. 

'Perhaps it should have been less of one,' Klaus said sourly. 'It's a common enough rumour.' 

Payne gave him almost precisely the same suspicious look he tended to get from Gil when the boy thought he could smell a test. 'We are intimately familiar with rumours, Herr Baron,' he said. 'I've been running a travelling show for nearly thirty years. You can't think I didn't notice the difference.'

Oh, really. If Payne could see it, why couldn't Barry? Why couldn't-- Klaus cut off a train of thought that was veering alarmingly toward self-pity and said coolly enough after a moment, 'Thank you. I haven't come to expect it. But to return to the subject of Moxana, did anything else change shortly before this... deterioration began?' 

_'Hmph.'_ Marie sounded distinctly angry, but she didn't explain why until Klaus looked questioningly at her. 'She's grieving.'

'Over...?' Agatha asked. 

'Her sister,' Payne said. 'Er... another Muse. Tinka. The Dancer.' 

'You were travelling with _two_ Muses?' Klaus asked. 

'For nearly twenty years,' Payne confirmed with a sigh. Klaus tried to imagine conducting a travelling show through Europa during the chaos he'd come back to, or the active attacks he'd missed. He wasn't sure which would have been worse. 'This... ah, you understand this isn't something we'd normally trouble you with....'

Klaus sighed. 'Who took her?'

Payne's shoulders sagged. 'Prince Aaronev of Sturmhalten.'

'Of course,' said Klaus. It would be a Sturmvoraus making trouble. 'I'll see to retrieving her.' Technically he had no right to trespass on Aaronev's territory over so small a matter as the theft of a clank. He was going to do it anyway. Should he tell Otilia he'd discovered one of her sisters? Or wait until both had been found, rather than risk having her storm Sturmhalten? She was not much inclined to wait on the sidelines.

Most of the circus folk looked startled. Agatha pursed her lips, then said, 'Actually, maybe I should ask, first.'

'You're expecting that to work?' asked Klaus. Granted Heterodynes could be persuasive, and not just because you knew they had an army of Jägers back home.

'Maybe,' said Agatha. 'There is a risk that it would prompt him to hide her, but if he hasn't been trumpeting it to the skies that he has a Muse then she might be hidden already.'

'You can try,' said Klaus. If it worked it would save him from breaking his own rules and his soldiers from an unnecessary battle. It probably wouldn't, but Agatha was right -- they were unlikely to lose anything by making the attempt. 'Sturmhalten has a history with Mechanicsburg. Both antagonistic and as trade partners, although never actually as allies. They still take pride in their original role as a defence for the world against Mechanicsburg, but don't hold anything personal against it. It might be helpful to know. Also,' he paused, 'Aaronev was a friend, of sorts, of your father and uncle and a far closer one to your mother.'

'I see,' Agatha said. 'That _is_ useful to know. And we can hope he took Tinka more out of historical sentiment than scientific curiosity.' Klaus considered that a little too optimistic, but was willing to concede that it was at least a theoretical possibility. 'I'll start by just asking to see her, I think. After that we might have more to go on.' 

'I hear plotting!' Zeetha's voice announced. Klaus turned to see her approaching with the rest of the circus folk she'd taken along -- drinking, presumably, as most of them looked slightly tipsy and were trying to stop. Zeetha hugged Agatha with one arm and then dragged her a few steps so she could hug Klaus at the same time. 

Klaus put an arm around her briefly and tried not to look nonplussed while revising his estimate of how much they'd been drinking. Or maybe Zeetha was just doing this to discomfit him. 'You didn't tell me you had a circus full of Sparks.' 

'It's hardly--' Payne began to object. 

'There are at least six not counting Agatha and Taki,' Klaus said. 'And before anyone else feels the need to say anything preemptive, I am not planning to take them into custody -- protective or otherwise.' He glanced around at them over her head, trying to guess which ones actually were Sparks. 'Although I wouldn't mind a closer look at your work.' 

'We also just found out there's a Muse with the circus,' Agatha said. 'And that the Prince of Sturmhalten took another one away a few years ago. Hence the plotting.'

Zeetha tapped a finger against her lips. 'They have been wanting to see _you_. Might work. Have you talked to Moxana about it yet?' 

'No--' 

Zeetha let them go and stepped up to rap at the door to the prop wagon. There was a tiny pause, and then the bell at the top of it rang twice. 

'Okay,' said Zeetha, opening the door, 'we can go in.' 

Well, some of them could go in. There was only so much room. Klaus stepped up into the prop wagon and found he had to duck through the door, although there was room to straighten up inside. Agatha, Payne, and Marie joined them, and Zeetha leaned against the open doorway. Everybody else crowded around outside. 

Moxana sat regarding them coolly -- focussed particularly on Agatha -- with her hands steepled over a game board on which were arrayed a variety of chess pieces, in more colours than seemed strictly necessary. A queen carved from malachite caught his eye, and Klaus stared hard at the board until it resolved into... not a chess game played according to normal rules, certainly. Aside from the pieces being evidently drawn from multiple sets, the malachite queen appeared to have recently castled, and one white rook had been adorned with tiny feathered wings. But it was a pattern in which he thought he could discern a familiar meaning. 

Klaus was still trying to sort out Moxana's model of Europan politics when she swept the pieces carelessly off the board into a storage compartment and flipped the board itself to reveal silver-embroidered green baize. She fanned an elaborately decorated tarot deck in front of her face, in long fingers, momentarily hiding the lack of a mouth; then she tapped them against where her lips would be and swept them face-down across the mat in an artistic spiral. 

'I haven't seen her use the cards in quite a while,' Payne murmured. 'She used to tell fortunes at times....'

'If she wants to do that, I wouldn't have minded seeing more of her chessboard,' said Klaus. 

Payne glanced up at him. 'But she also uses them when she wants to communicate more straightforwardly.'

Moxana gestured at the cards and then held out her hands in invitation to Klaus and Agatha. They exchanged a look, and then Agatha picked a card. Klaus frowned and did likewise, turned it over, and eyed Payne. 'This is straightforward?'

Payne shrugged. 'Relatively speaking. She has cards to represent herself and some other individuals....' 

Klaus flipped the card to show him. 

Payne paused. 'That one's probably somehow situational.' 

'Ooh, the Lovers.' Klaus glanced back to find Zeetha grinning at him. 'Maybe she thinks you should visit Mom.'

'I seriously doubt I have a Muse concerned with the state of my marriage.' He supposed it wasn't a poor representation. The Lovers was a conflict card; it was said to represent duality, which included passion but also being pulled in two directions. Klaus had always thought most of the versions based on the Queen's Tarot looked more like someone trying to break up a fight than the official description of a couple with some third party trying to draw one of them away. This was almost certainly the original -- after all, what else would Moxana have? -- and admitted both interpretations, as well as a few other possibilities. He almost thought the expressions changed as he tilted the card. 

'Well, I seem to be a natural disaster of some sort,' said Agatha, showing him the Whirlwind. 'Or possibly heading into one.' 

'It could also be an artificial disaster. You are a bit disruptive,' said Klaus, 'but if you're planning to visit Sturmhalten, I'd imagine it's a warning.' 

'That card has several standard interpretations,' Payne put in. 'Canned, if you will. But those are perhaps worth considering under the circumstances.'

'I don't know them,' Agatha said. 'I didn't try that kind of fortunetelling.' 

'Great power at great risk,' Payne said, and Klaus and Agatha looked at each other reflexively. 'Expect an unexpected friend. Beware of things underground. Or perhaps, learn a new piece of music.' 

'That last one would seem to apply better if you were accompanying her there,' said Klaus, thinking of the Silverodeon. 

'I'll keep an eye out for underground whirlwinds,' Agatha said, bemused. Moxana rapped her knuckles with the rest of the deck. 'Ow! Okay.' She handed the card back to Moxana. 'I'll keep an open mind,' she said. 'About a lot of good and bad possibilities.'

* * *


End file.
